


get me bandages, bring me flowers and arsenic

by belatrix



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 04:48:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4692611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belatrix/pseuds/belatrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Come on, Patrick, put that thing away before you hurt yourself."</p><p>[Jane and Red John ―tea, a gun, and a kiss.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	get me bandages, bring me flowers and arsenic

The twin porcelain cups, colored baby blue and white, seem too fragile, too delicate a sight against the backdrop of what is going on; in them, barely touched Oolong tea has gone cold. Outside the motel room, the world is bright and warm and shiny. Inside, Patrick Jane is holding a gun.

Red John doesn’t seem worried in the slightest. He looks at Jane and he looks at the barrel of the gun pointed at his head, and even if his lips don’t smile, his eyes do. “We both know you’re not going to do it,” he says easily, conversationally. He’s sitting on Jane’s chair, fingers drumming away a soft rhythm on Jane’s kitchen table.

Jane, suddenly, feels like laughing. He should have expected this kind of response, really. The amount of self-importance this man has is greater than anything Jane has ever known. “Do we, now?” he asks, his tone equally calm.

“Of course.” As if not wanting to insult his host, Red John takes one of the cups and brings it to his lips. “I know you think that this is what all those years have been leading up to, but believe me when I say, you’re wrong.” He takes a sip. Cold tea, Jane knows, never tastes good.

This time, he does laugh ― a sharp, cutting sound, a thing filled with edges and corners. “Denial,” he says, and his finger rests on the trigger. He doesn’t pull, though, not yet. “All people go through it before they die, I suppose.”

Red John shrugs. “Your wife didn’t,” he returns loftily, but Jane can feel nothing but the savage determination of fast approaching murder. The words don’t hurt him as much as his opponent may think they do. “Besides, no one is dying today.” This time, Jane remains quiet. All those years ago, when he had stared into the eyes of the-man-who-was-not-Red-John, there had been no hesitation. He doesn’t feel much different, now ― and yet, he has to stop for a moment, to gather his thoughts. He wants to savor this; he wants to see blood spattering on his walls, he wants to see a corpse falling at his feet.

A theatrical sigh. “Come on, Patrick, put that thing away before you hurt yourself.”

When Red John had casually strolled into his plain, unassuming motel room half an hour ago, Jane had gone still, not a single muscle moving. After a cordial greeting on Red John’s part and an empty stare on Jane’s, the latter had proceeded to quietly make them both tea, his hands only slightly trembling. When he had picked up the hidden gun from under his bed, Red John had said nothing.

Jane’s grip on the gun doesn’t falter, not for a second. His throat feels closed, like he’s about to cough up blood, but his head is clear in a way that it hasn’t been in years. Still, Red John just shakes his head and leans slightly forward. “Alright, Patrick,” he says, as if talking to a very young, very simple, very stupid child. Jane knows the man thinks him to be anything but. “Let’s assume that you’re truly going to do this. Let’s assume that you’re going to pull that trigger, watch the bullet fly into my brain ― that is, if you somehow manage to make a straight shot, which I highly doubt, but still. Let’s assume I’m going to die here, in a few seconds, my dead body in a pool of blood on your clean wooden floor. Let me ask you one question, only one,” now he does smile, “what are you going to do, after all this happens?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jane says, and gives a smile of his own. His face almost hurts with the effort of it, but god, the man is childishly predictable. As if Jane hadn’t expected a little speech like this. As if Jane hadn’t expected Red John to try and appeal to whatever unshakeable connection he thinks they share. These things are of no importance; there is no after. All that matters is this moment, the gun in his hands and the man who murdered his family at the end of it. Blood and guts and cold tea and a floor that won’t remain clean forever.

It’s Red John’s turn to laugh now, but coming from his lips it sounds genuinely happy. “You’re only proving my point!” he says, bright and merry, and for a moment, Jane sees the serial killer’s calling card grinning down at him from a white wall. “Nothing matters to you, nothing but me. You don’t care what happens to you once I’m dead and gone; I am your life’s only purpose. Patrick, my dear―” he pauses for just a second, takes a small breath, “―kill me, then, if you want it so badly. But know that your life will be over along with mine.”

 _My life was over eight years ago,_ Jane thinks, and the harsh metal of the gun is cold and sharp against his fingers.

 _There is nothing for you out there_ , nothing but me, is what Red John does not say, but Jane hears it anyway.

He knows it isn’t true. He knows it, because he suddenly thinks of Lisbon; of her green eyes and the worry in them and the way she smiles at him, half-exasperated and half-affectionate. He thinks of her voice, of her telling him that there are people who care about him, who need him. He even thinks of Van Pelt, and Rigsby, and Cho. He tries to count the reasons he has to live his life, to want to live his life, but Red John is smiling from across the kitchen table, eyes on Jane’s face.

“In fact,” he says, and his smile widens, “why don’t you put the gun aside and grab a knife? I know you’ve been dreaming about this, _cutting me up and watching me die slowly_. Or am I wrong? Pick up a knife, and kill me. And then go on to live your life without me.”

For several long seconds, there is silence; it drapes itself over Jane’s shoulders, digs its way into his bones, and all he can see is twisted sheets and open throats. “You think,” he says finally, slowly, “you think you’re so important. You think you’re everything.”

Red John stands, and the gun follows the movement. Another gentle shrug. “Am I not?”

And Jane isn’t sure what to say. _No, you’re not_ would be a lie. Because rust-red smiles and blood soaked sheets are all there is. White ghosts and sleepless nights and silent screams. Curved blades and cold skin and hair dipped in crimson. But _yes, you are_ , would be a lie as well. Because, sometimes, there’s cups of tea and paper frogs and something that feels maybe like rays of almost-warm light.

Jane isn’t sure what to say, and he lowers the gun. Red John’s smile is a cut of teeth, splitting his face in half.

He crosses the room too slowly but not slowly enough, and Jane is still holding the gun, although now it’s pointing to the floor; he feels everything and nothing, all at once. He feels too empty, and at the same time like he might burst. “This,” Red John says, and his voice carries a hundred things with it, things Jane doesn’t want to make sense of, “this is exactly what I mean.”

His fingers close around Jane’s wrist, and Jane controls the flinch, but not well enough. The gun feels heavy, pulling him to the floor like lead, and before he can comprehend Red John’s lips are on his own. It’s soft, and it’s gentle, and it’s quiet, and Jane wants to die. He does not move, does not push the man away ― his grip is loose around the gun, now, and he tastes bile at the back of his throat. Something cold and metallic curling on his tongue, something painful and white-hot running down his spine.

Red John pulls away, smile now gone. “We have to meet again, Patrick,” he says, hand touching Jane’s shoulder fleetingly. “Don’t you agree?”

Jane swallows, and holds the man’s gaze. “Of course,” he manages, revolted at the sound of his own voice. Hoarse and choked, the voice of a victim in a murder where nobody dies. “Of course.”

And just like that, he leaves. Red John turns and leaves, walks out the door without closing it behind him, steps out into the bright warm sunlight. And Jane is still not breathing normally, and he’s still holding the gun.

He feels like something inside him has fallen, shattered, bleeding out on the floor that has remained clean and spotless, after all. Solid hardwood, a top coating of polyurethane, and not a single drop of blood marring it.

He runs outside. Around him, life goes on. People going to their jobs, holding their children by the hand, chatting on their phones. Bright sun, an endless expanse of clear blue sky.

“Wait,” he calls out, and his voice cracks in the middle, a thing torn from his throat like a sob. Red John stops, and turns around. His mouth curves on a smile, opens on a word he will not speak; Jane breathes, and fires the gun.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [paradise burning](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5291912) by [sirenofodysseus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirenofodysseus/pseuds/sirenofodysseus)




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